Advice on how to sustain and fund your partnership beyond Global School Partnerships
As school partnerships develop and mature, deeper and longer lasting impacts can result. Some partnerships will come to a natural conclusion while others will continue beyond this and the relationship will become an integral element of school life and ethos.
We appreciate that sustaining your partnership beyond the funding offered in programmes like GSP has substantial financial implications for the partner schools involved. However, there are a number of options to explore and we have put together ideas to help you think of ways of sustaining your partnership.
There are a number of other UK initiatives that provide funding for teacher visits and exchanges to further develop an existing link. For more information about other funding opportunities from British Council or other funding bodies or charitable organisations in the UK you can look on British Council Schools Online (formerly Global Gateway)
Other funding opportunities will focus on different elements of the partnership or may require you to work with different schools or community groups, so this is a great opportunity to take stock of what you have achieved so far and to develop the partnership in other exciting directions.
Your local Development Education Centre (DEC) or Local Authority might be aware of local grants or initiatives that can provide funding or support to your partnership. Contact details of your local DEC can be found at www.dea.org.uk.
Local business or enterprise initiatives may be able to offer financial or practical support to your partnership. Involving local business is another way of involving the community in your partnership and you may be surprised by the level of support you get.
You can also get in touch with community groups in your area to see if they know of any other sources of funding.
You may wish to spend some time researching funding that may be available in your area. Your local library will have resources to help you and websites like www.bbc.co.uk/worldclass and www.tes.co.uk may also have tips and advice.
If you are aware of any other sources of funding, please do let us know so that we can pass the details on to other schools.
Many successful partnerships have introduced fundraising to support partnership activities rather than improving facilities in partner schools.
It can be directed towards supporting communication between partner schools, supporting equal numbers of teacher and pupil exchanges from all partner schools and, of course, the development of joint curriculum activities.
Where fundraising does happen, all schools should be involved in planning a strategy, in undertaking fundraising activities and in agreeing on how funds will be spent.
Always remember that fundraising needs to be treated cautiously in order to avoid creating or reinforcing a donor-recipient relationship.
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